Caretakers
Caretaker is a term used to refer to those that ensure the safety of the Prisoner, a superdimensional entity that exists in a prison which itself is somehow located within the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. For all the time it has existed since time immemorial, the Prisoner sought races that served as the protectors of its only link to the outside universe, a space station simply known as the Panopticon. These tend to be mentally strong yet weak-willed creatures that have interstellar space travel capabilities, but it is believed that some races entered into a pact with the Prisoner willingly, though no conclusive evidence can be found to support this. While the Caretakers themselves are incapable of releasing the Prisoner due to the utterly alien workings of the Panopticon, they can ensure that those who uncover the existence of the Prisoner and seek to destroy it are unable to do so, thus protecting their god while it gathers the strength to escape of its own effort. The promise of reward beyond the wildest imagination keeps this slave race under its thrall with no small degree of mental suggestion. The need for mentally strong races is a necessity due to the telepathic properties of the Prisoner. Lesser creatures are instantly killed by its communication or are severely impaired unless conditioning or technological shielding is put in place. Some species spend their entire existence in service to the Prisoner, born of their homeworld, offered up to the entity and are subsequently extinguished over the natural flow of time, which may stretch from millions to billions of years. Current Servants Within Home Universe, the current Caretakers are believed to be the Xorda, a cephalopod-like alien creature that evolved on a water world, incapable of existing on dry land. These aliens have been in service to the Prisoner for at least one hundred thousand years, though it is believed that they have been known to have served as early as 330,000 BCE within Home Universe. Priest caste members live their whole lives close to the accretion disk of Sagittarius A* receiving and interpreting the will of the Prisoner which the then communicate with Xorda Prime, their homeworld, located within the Perseus Arm. However, the Xorda have never been encountered by Humanity within Home Universe, meaning that their combat capabilities are entirely unknown. If Forerunner battle notes are to be believed, their military consists of drones or warrior caste members in fightercraft like exo-armor. These zealots are bloodthirsty and will eradicate those who approach the central core. However, during the Forerunner assault on the Panopticon over a hundred thousand years ago, they proved only a slight challenge to the Warrior-Servants under the Didact. They are believed to still be the active Caretakers as of 3242. Behind the Scenes The Caretakers are something I thought of well after creating the Prisoner. Logically, something like the Prisoner can't hope to exist without a security force to ensure that it isn't disturbed while biding its time. Even a god needs concentration. So, the Caretakers were brought into being sometime around the beginning of writing Heart of Chaos. Yeah, it was implemented a bit lately. I had an interesting thought to have the Xorda be the ones that are guarding it, thus bringing them into existing within this version of the Halo universe. The galaxy is a big place and Humanity has explored little of it, meaning that it's plausible that they can exist. Additionally, the Xorda evolved in the ocean and somehow managed to make it to space - impressive in itself as combustion is a bit difficult at the bottom of the ocean. This however means that they are capable of fighting in three dimensions - quite an advantage to space combat as it is naturally engraved into them. This is likely what made them candidates to the Prisoner who wanted only the best to protect the Panopticon. However, there's a double whammy - there's a short story I wrote called Foreboding, where Xorda receive word that Humanity is still alive and kicking. Here's the thing though - this story is set in EUS-0, meaning that it's Mobius' home universe. This presents an interesting implication - the Prisoner is capable of sending its messages between universes to call a species to its cause. This implies that virtually every universe has the Xorda acting as Caretakers unless the Prisoner desires otherwise. This can amass quite a military force should the Prisoner have a way to fold worlds and bring everyone to the fight at once. List of Appearances * Heart of Chaos (First Appearance, First Named) * Foreboding (Indirect Mentioning) Category:Organization Category:Lore Category:Xorda